Learn English – the noun to refer to the 64- or 32-bit -ness of an operating system

computingsingle-word-requeststerminology

I know that "processor architecture" can be used to refer to whether the processor is 32-bit or 64-bit (or something else), but what word can be used for the operating system? Note that it's not necessarily the same as the processor architecture, e.g. I can install a 32-bit OS on a 64-bit machine.

Also, this is for a business document for non-technical people, so I'd like to avoid an overly technical terminology.

Best Answer

I suggest bitness, in the sense of "The architecture of a computer system in terms of how many bits compose the basic values it can deal with". (Logitech uses it, Microsoft uses it to specify operating-system bitness, et al.)